Boomeranging Back To A Previous Job

Tell me what you would like to see in this column: What is your job, what workplace issues affect you...? E-mail me and get your answers in upcoming features.

Working for The Man has its good sides and its bad sides. One reality is that your perceived value is great to outsiders — usually greater than it is to insiders. Even if your colleagues and supervisors genuinely appreciate what you bring to the table and think that you're a swell guy, there's always the possibility that someone on the outside (at another company) will think that you are worth more to their business than you actually are. Conceptually, this is akin to thinking that the grass is greener on the other side.

Think about it: Throughout history, people have often been more concerned with strangers' well-being than that of their own families. Even in matters of the heart, people sometimes seem kinder to people they just met than to their significant others. The business world is similar. And some employees are more loyal to strangers than to their own employers.

Accordingly, we are often drawn to opportunities on the outside. Naturally, some of these opportunities tend to present themselves in the form of previous employers, since they tend to have a better sense of what one can bring to the table.

boomerang employees

Employees who return to their previous places of work are called boomerang employees. Providing we leave on good terms, there is always a chance to return to our old employers. In fact, this is the top reason why all exits should remain graceful. No matter how much you might need a change, no matter how much you might want to leave with a bang, always leave the back door open.

Years ago, I worked at a fairly large corporation — the largest bank in the nation. I was still in college, and as such, near the bottom of the ladder. Upon completing my business degree in finance, I presumed that suddenly, doors would open and the seas would part for me. Of course I was wrong; way wrong.

The fact of the matter was that, in my mind, my current predicament at the company trumped all else. Meanwhile, competing banks were offering me much greater positions, higher pay and a considerably brighter future. In the end, I decided to forgo all of that hoopla to move away from the corporate setting to a start-up one (although it soon became clear that I was not alone in doing so). When you're in a company and not on the fast track, it's often the case that you will move up the corporate ladder much faster by making a vertical move across the industry, as opposed to trying to move up vertically within a company.